Boys' Night In
by thinktink2
Summary: A look at the guys' night when they stay in as the girls go out. A sort of companion piece to "Girls Night Out" and part of the "Coming to Terms" sphere, taking place after "Reaping." Nadalind fic.


"I will see your five, and raise you ten," Nick said, tossing his chips into the pile.

"Somebody's thinking they're lucky," Wu commented.

"Or hoping you will," Monroe said.

"I want to play!"

"What buddy?" Nick said, shifting slightly as Kelly moved to climb on his lap. He moved his cards into one hand and wrapped his arm around his son and helped to tug him up onto his knee. He fanned his cards out again, trying to keep them out of Kelly's reach.

"You're bluffing," Hank said, looking at him.

"If you think so by all means place your bet," Nick said, moving the cards again out of reach, before laying them to the side to grab his beer and take a drink. Kelly lunged for the cards.

"Kelly!"

"I wanna hold them," he whined.

"Fine, but just…keep them like this," Nick demonstrated.

"Fine, I'll raise," Hank said, and tossed in some chips. He looked at Wu, daring him to make his move.

"With that pathetic hand? I'm not worried," Wu said, and placed his bet. He looked at Monroe.

"All right, you all are crazy, right?" he said in disgust, but nevertheless tossed some chips into the pile.

"It's called confidence," Wu said.

"It's called wishful thinking," Hank retorted.

"Kelly," Nick sighed when Kelly flipped two of Nick's cards into the pile of chips at the center of the table.

"I don't like that one," he said, one of them landing face up so all the rest of the table could see.

"A three of clubs?" Hank said. "What else has he got, Kelly?"

Nick snatched the card that was still face down back, and snagged the three of clubs as Monroe handed it to him.

"Leave them alone," Nick commanded, when Kelly moved to mess with the cards again. "You're not going to hold them if you keep messing with them," and Kelly dropped the cards down on the table. Face up.

Nick sighed in annoyance and grabbed for the cards as Kelly noticed the pile of chips to Nick's side and grabbed for them.

"I knew you were bluffing," Hank said and Nick rolled his eyes in aggravation.

"No peeking. Kelly!" he snapped when Kelly knocked the pile of chips over. Kelly grabbed for the chips and began stacking them in rainbow hued stacks. Nick stared at his son's face, furrowed in concentration, and let him, hoping it would keep him quiet and occupied for more than five minutes.

It didn't last five seconds.

Kelly tapped the edges of two chips he held in each hand noisily on the table, apparently enjoying the sound. Also apparently the only one at the table who did.

Wu stared at his son, looking like he wanted to say something and Hank glanced at him too.

"Kelly," Nick said, feeling the pressure to admonish him, although, if Kelly just left his cards alone and didn't send the chips all over the table or the room he could probably find a way to live with it. "Stop."

Kelly immediately began whining and Nick wished he hadn't said anything. "Stop whining," he said, "Or I'm going to put you down."

"No, I wanna stay with you," he pleaded, waving his hands noisily through the piles of chips, scattering them halfway across the table. Monroe flicked a few of them back towards Nick's end and apparently Kelly found that funny, because he tried to emulate that and sent a half a dozen chips onto the floor of the room, and one back to Monroe.

"Kelly," Nick said sighing, "If you can't leave it alone you're going to have to get down." Kelly whined again, a high pitched trilling sound as he kicked his foot out petulantly, banging the leg of the table (and Nick's shin when it came back). The others' stack of chips crumbled with the jerky motion.

Hank sighed and Wu looked up.

Nick shifted a little where both of Kelly's legs were pointed between Nick's in the hopes of keeping him from kicking another table leg.

"Did the girls say what they were going to do tonight?"

"Yeah, Adalind received four tickets to some show from a client," Nick said. "They're going to dinner and then the show."

"Is Eve going with them?" Hank asked.

"I think so, I didn't ask."

"What's the show?" Wu asked, smiling.

"Not a strip show, if that's what you're implying," Rosalee said, overhearing them as she came into the room.

"It was," Wu drawled. "Why? Are you banned for life?"

"Ha, ha," Adalind said, coming up behind Rosalee, looking beautiful and chic in skinny-leg black leather-looking leggings and a black printed silk tunic. Her blonde hair was straight and loose.

"There's some buffalo chicken dip in the oven" Adalind told them.

"Is there real chicken in it?" Hank asked, glancing at Monroe. "Or vegan chicken?"

"Is there real Buffalo?" Wu asked, smirking. "Or vegan buffalo?"

"Ha, ha, guys," Monroe said, "I brought my own dish, thank you very much, and you're going to love it."

"Uh-huh," Hank said.

"Yes there's meat in it," Adalind said. "Of the chicken variety. It should be done in twenty minutes," she said to Nick who nodded like he was listening, which he half was, but he was also trying to grab a poker chip from Kelly, and throw it into the pot, who was guarding the stacks like a leprechaun with a pot of gold (" _Mine!"_ ). "There's some chips for the dip on the counter. Try and keep the kids out of it," she said. Nick nodded.

"What time's Trubel supposed to be here?" Nick asked her.

Adalind checked her watch. "Should be a few minutes. They were going to pick up Bud on the way and head over here."

"They?" Wu said. "As in Eve?"

"I guess," Adalind said, not sounding thrilled about it. She smiled down at Kelly as she leaned against Nick and looked at his cards. He moved his arm from around his son to his wife, as she ran her fingers through their son's hair. Kelly grinned up at her.

"Oh-kay."

"What?" Rosalee said. "It can't be any more awkward then going to a strip show with her."

"No argument here," Monroe said. "I still would have loved to have seen that. Eve," he said after a moment. "At a strip show, not male strippers."

"True," Hank conceded.

"Except this time we're going to dinner and we're going to have to make conversation," Adalind sighed.

"Not necessarily," Rosalee said. "We could just sit there silently and eat."

"Yeah, because that wouldn't be awkward either," Adalind said.

"Just let Rosalee do all the talking," Monroe suggested. Rosalee turned to her husband and gave him a look of mild outrage.

"Yes, put the onus of the dinner atmosphere on me."

"Actually that sounds like good advice, I think I'll do that," Adalind said. "I feel like the less talking I do the less likely I'll be to step in it."

"You plan on drinking at this dinner?' Rosalee asked her.

"Yes, it's with Eve," Adalind said.

"Then plan on stepping in it," and Adalind frowned and pouted, and Nick smirked.

"Surely there's things you can talk about," Wu said.

"Yes, my kids, who I happen to share with the man she once was living with; my husband, who happens to _be_ the man she was living with, the garden at my home I share with that man. I guess I could talk about work," Adalind said. Rosalee wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, that's the face everyone makes when I talk about work."

Rosalee smiled. "It will be all right."

"Drink enough alcohol it will be."

"Maybe lay off the booze," Nick suggested. "Try and stay out of jail. Just a suggestion," he added at the glare she gave him.

"Bad people go to jail," Kelly said quietly, sorting the poker chips to his liking.

"See? Kelly's got the idea."

"He's much smarter than me," Adalind said, kissing the top of Kelly's head. He wrinkled his nose at his mother's attention but he still wouldn't let Nick have a poker chip.

"Kelly, give me a chip," Nick said, exasperated.

"No, they're mine," Kelly said, trying to make out like a greedy crime boss and hug the chips close to his body.

"Give me a blue one," Nick said, and Kelly shook his head. "Can you throw one in the center," he asked, trying a new tack, and after a long moment where Kelly tried to determine whether or not Nick was pulling one over him, Kelly nodded. _It's nice to have trust_ , Nick thought dryly.

"Throw a blue one," Nick directed, and Kelly selected one as slowly and carefully as possible and then lobbed it across the table as hard as he could. It bounced off the edge between Wu and Monroe and Monroe bent down to pick it up and tossed it back into the pot.

"Thanks," Nick said. Monroe nodded.

"Really, you're betting with that hand?" Adalind asked him in surprise. Nick turned his head slowly to glare at her.

"Okay," she said.

"I _knew_ you were bluffing," Hank said.

"She should probably sleep a few hours at least," Rosalee said to Monroe, referring to their infant daughter. "She just went down, but if she wakes up, there's breast milk in the fridge," Rosalee said to her husband, and Monroe nodded, arranging his cards.

"What time's the game?" Rosalee asked them.

"8:30," Hank said.

"Same time the show starts," Adalind said. "We should be back before midnight I would think."

"If you're not, I'll call all the local jails before I panic," Nick said.

"You're hilarious," Adalind said, giving him a dirty look.

Nick smiled.

"Oh, sounds like Trubel's here," Adalind said, sliding away from Nick.

"I'll get the door," Rosalee volunteered.

"Tell Trubel to park in the garage," Nick said.

"She might go through the garage," Adalind replied, and he conceded her point.

"I'll tell her," Rosalee said.

"I told the kids they could have a pizza," Adalind continued with the instructions, and Nick nodded distractedly, wondering if he should go ahead and fold or try to convince them he had anything.

"Pizza!" Kelly yelled. "Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!"

"Kelly," Nick admonished.

"Kelly, inside voice," Adalind said, "or you won't have any pizza." Kelly immediately dropped the level by fifty decibels. "Pizza. Pizza. Pizza." he said quietly.

"Where's Diana?" Nick asked, looking around. He squinted over at the sofa in the great room. The TV was on but he didn't see his daughter, unless she was slouched down below the back of the couch. Adalind nodded towards where he was looking.

"She's in the family room watching a movie. I told her she could go upstairs in our room and watch TV for a little while when your game comes in, but I want both of you," she said to Kelly, "in bed no later than nine."

Kelly shook his head no definitively.

He slipped off Nick's lap (taking five poker chips with him) and Nick breathed a sigh of relief, and fanned through his cards.

A moment later he heard Kelly screech in excitement.

"Uncle Bud!"

"Hey kiddo," Bud said. "Here, Rosalee, let me give this to you. My wife made it," he heard before focusing his attention on the game when Hank upped the ante. Adalind was right. With this hand, he should probably fold.

"Trubel!"

"Kelly! Oomph," he heard, as Kelly must have jumped on Trubel. This was confirmed a moment later when Trubel came into the breakfast nook, where Nick and the guys were playing cards carrying Kelly in her arms.

"Hey guys," Trubel said, and the guys all nodded and echoed the greeting.

"Trubel," Wu said.

Eve followed sedately behind, and tipped her head in greeting. "Gentlemen," she said and they all nodded in reply as well. "Nick," Eve added, looking at him for a moment and he took a sip of his beer.

"Eve," he acknowledged.

It was weird, he thought, and disconcerting to have her in his home. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. His gut feeling was to not like it. She likely already knew where it was not long after they had purchased it, given the resources they had at the wall, but he had always been careful about who he gifted the knowledge of his home—his children's home—with and she had never before been inside it until now.

In the three some years she had been known as Eve, she had shown more and more that she was someone who could be counted on as an ally, even trusted, but Nick still felt some misgivings. She had proven she was willing to protect Nick, and his children by extension. He still didn't know if push came to shove how far she'd go to protect Adalind, though he supposed she had with that whole episode with Louis when he had kidnapped her, perhaps if nothing else because she meant so much to Nick and also because Eve seemed to have finally accepted that Nick had moved on. Still, it was always in the back of his mind that she had wanted Adalind dead, that she had threatened her when she had been pregnant with his son, and though Nick knew things were drastically different he couldn't put it out of his head completely that she had helped in the death of another beloved member of his family: his mother.

"Who's up?" Eve asked politely.

"Wu," Hank said.

"Not for long," Monroe murmured.

"Are we ready?" Trubel asked Rosalee.

"I think so, let me just tell Adalind."

Nick noticed she had disappeared when Eve and Trubel had come in, but registered her voice and Bud's still in the hallway.

"Sorry snot. I have to put you down."

"No," Kelly said.

"Your mom and I and aunt Rosalee and Eve are going out and you get to stay home and help your dad win at cards."

"He's losing," Hank said.

"He's helping that all right," Nick said, looking at his son. Kelly was looking at Eve, who was staring back, another slightly disconcerting sight. He wondered what she thought when she looked at Kelly. They had dreamt of having a life and children together, or at least Nick had. He had thought Juliette was the one, and had wanted that future, too, but she had refused his marriage proposal, and perhaps her reasons she gave were just. It had still stung though, and then it just never seemed to be the right time to try to realize that future again until it was too late to have one. Nick had had a future with Adalind thrust upon him with the arrival of his son and everything had gone to hell with Juliette and that life, and then Eve had risen from the ashes.

It had all wound up working out, perhaps a bit painfully at first, and also, truthfully, for the better. He was happy with his life, for the first time in a long, long time, demonstrating, perhaps how _un_ happy he had been before, even with Juliette, and had been unable to admit it, or maybe even to recognize it. He had spent so much time with her trying to recapture something that had changed irrevocably. He was content now; two beautiful children and a desire for more, and a wife he adored despite all logic saying otherwise that he should.

Eve smiled slightly at his son, and Nick let out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. He wondered how Eve would take it if Adalind became pregnant with his child again. Kelly still stared a few moments longer before grinning - Adalind's smile, Nick wondered if Eve realized - and squirmed to be set down. Trubel set him on the floor and Kelly ran to grab some toys to show off.

"Adalind!" Rosalee yelled loudly, startling everyone, and Nick and the guys all looked at her. "Let's go! We're going to be late to the restaurant. We've got a 6:30 reservation."

"Okay, let me just set this in the kitchen on the counter," she said, crossing into view, carrying a dish and Nick perked up in interest. "Bud's wife made you guys some peach cobbler," she told them.

"It's an old family recipe. Been in my wife's family for six generations," Bud said proudly, following Adalind.

"Tell your wife thanks, Bud," Adalind said.

"Looking forward to eating it," Wu said.

"Hey guys," Bud said in greeting, "Sorry I'm late. Wow, Nick, your new place is really nice. N-not that your old place wasn't." Nick nodded.

"The fome?" Rosalee said, and Bud looked at her in confusion.

"I'm sorry?" Bud said.

"What happened to the fome?" Wu said. "I loved the fome."

"He's talking about when I lived on the other side of Portland," Nick clarified for the others, otherwise known as the Victorian he had shared with Juliette.

"Oh."

"Yeah, with Juliette. Anyway, I was late because I had to take a call, and then my wife insisted I bring something, because, well, you know how much she likes you, Nick, and-"

"Bud, I got it, it's fine. Have a seat," Nick said, indicating a chair, and Bud grinned and took a seat.

"Want a beer?" Nick asked, getting up and heading to the fridge.

"Uh, yeah, that would be great, Nick, thanks."

Diana appeared in the kitchen, looking at the dish Adalind was carrying with interest, and Kelly spotted his sister and followed, both children watching their mother set it carefully on the kitchen counter. She saw them eyeing it hungrily and scooted it back further from the edge, probably a futile move with either child, but especially Kelly. He had a sixth sense for knowing when sweets were present and a dogged determination to get them.

Nick teased his fingers on the top of Diana's head as he passed her by and set a beer in front of Bud and retook his seat.

"Hi Uncle Bud," Diana greeted, having followed Nick back to the table.

"Hi sweetheart," Bud said smiling at her.

"Where's the kid?" Trubel said, pointing to Rosalee and Monroe, as she slipped her coat on, and Rosalee smiled. "In the den, sleeping. You want to see her?"

"She's asleep?"

"Yeah, I just put her down about a half hour ago."

"Sure, sleeping babies are the best kind to see," Trubel nodded, and she, Rosalee, and Eve followed her.

"Kelly, Daddy will let you have some after dinner," he heard Adalind say as she came back from the kitchen. Kelly frowned, which deepened when he saw his sister leaning over Nick's chair. He shoved his sister aside and Nick frowned.

"Kelly, don't shove your sister," he said sternly, and noted that the none of the poker chips he had disappeared with were no longer in his hands. Instead he held two matchbox police cars. Diana made an ugly face at her brother and Nick sighed.

"Where is everybody?" Adalind said, looking around.

"They went to the den to look at the baby."

She slipped on her coat and flipped her hair out over the collar. "There's another case of beer in the garage, if you decide you'll need it," she said, and Nick nodded again. "Seriously, why haven't you folded already?" she asked when she glanced at his cards, and he turned to her with a huff. "That hand is awful."

He turned back to find the hearts on a seven of hearts he was holding lining up vertically, then horizontally and then mismatching all over the face of the card.

"Diana, stop," he said, and she giggled and grinned.

"Or if you're going to do that at least change them to something I can win with," he muttered, throwing them down on the table. "I fold," he said. "Happy?" he asked his wife.

"Your money," she said.

"I like to think of it as _our_ money," he replied cheekily.

"I like to think of it all as _my_ money," she returned.

"I know," he said.

"Hey, you insisted," she reminded him as she grinned and turned to Rosalee and the others as they came back.

"That wasn't really what I was saying. I was saying buy food. Buy clothes. Buy things for the baby."

"Uh-huh, that's not how I remember it."

"You ready?" Rosalee asked her.

"Yeah, let me just grab my keys," Adalind said.

"You want to take my truck?" Nick asked her.

"No, I hate your truck," she said, but she smiled to take the sting out of her words.

"No, I want to ride in the Porsche," Trubel said, sounding like a little kid, referring to the Porsche Cayenne S SUV that Adalind had been gifted with this year as part of one of her employer's incentives for revenue she had brought into the firm. "I've never ridden in a Porsche before."

Adalind had been more than happy to bid Juliette's old Subaru goodbye, and Nick had regifted it to Trubel, who had driven the engine off his aunt's Wagoneer. Nick supposed the new car was probably a good thing, since Eve would be riding with them tonight, and he could only imagine how awkward that would be to have the husband, children, _and_ car that she had once had all belonging to the woman who'd taken her place. Seemed like insult to injury.

Nick wasn't offended by Adalind's remark. He hated the Porsche.

And it was not because, as Adalind and Trubel had claimed, it was so " _technologically advanced from the relic he drove that he didn't know how to work it._ "

But honestly, he'd seen fighter jet cockpits that had less buttons and gadgets.

The Porsche was certainly more Adalind, who had always had more champagne tastes besides living peaceably on Nick's beer budget. It had a ton of safety and security features, and entertainment features for the kids, and the few times he had driven it, it had ridden okay.

Fine, maybe he did feel a little ridiculous spending what felt like hours trying to work out what all the gadgets and buttons did. Wu and Hank had been impressed with it, but Monroe didn't look like he was all that wowed by it either, and Nick felt better about his snobbery.

"You're going to be driving?" Nick asked his wife. "You realize you're not going to be able to drink," and silently Nick cheered because Adalind drinking always made him nervous. There was no telling what she could get up to.

"No, I'm the DD," Rosalee said. "I get to drive the Porsche," she squealed quietly, grinning.

"You know, I _am_ capable of not drinking to excess," Adalind said to Nick.

"Really?" Nick snorted, and Monroe choked down a laugh as Hank and Wu hid a smile. "This I've got to see."

"You really missed your calling as a comedian," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Well I'm already and cop and Grimm; that would just be showing off."

"How come she gets to drive the Porsche and I can't?" Trubel asked Adalind.

"Because you ran down a person and drove the Subaru into a pole," Nick said, looking at Trubel incredulously.

"Hey, that guy ran, what was I going to do?"

"Uh, _not_ hit him with a car," Wu suggested.

"Well, then he would have got away," Trubel said.

"We would have found him and arrested him," Hank said. "It's kind of what we do."

"Well, see, you found him and arrested him faster. You're welcome," Trubel said.

"Who did she run over?" Bud asked, pausing in a sip of his beer. Diana pressed close to Nick, listening to the adults as she telekinetically messed with Kelly's poker chip stacks.

"No one, she rammed some guy we'd been looking into for a string of robberies," Nick said.

"How'd you hit the pole?"

"He got up after the first time and I thought I was going to have to hit him again, but he zigged when I thought he was going to zag," Trubel said. "Too late to stop and avoid it."

"He got up after you hit him with a car?" Bud asked.

"She sort of winged him the first time and he bounced off," Hank explained.

"See? You can see why I hit him with the car," Trubel said to Nick and Nick stared at her.

"Not really," Nick said. "The car was totaled. Anyway, that's why you can't drive the Porsche."

Trubel rolled her eyes and looked at Adalind.

"What he said," Adalind said, shaking her head and bending down to kiss Nick goodbye. "Save me some cobbler."

"You snooze, you lose," Nick said. "Bye."

"Bye guys!" She called out as they filed out the house.

"Bye mommy!" Diana and Kelly called.

"Be good," she reminded them and then the girls were gone.

"Can we have our Pizza?" Diana asked him as soon as the garage door slid shut and Nick looked at the guys, who shrugged and nodded. He placed two pizzas on the grill for the kids and the guys, conceded some snacks to Kelly and Diana in the meantime, against his better judgment (but he thought that might give him ten minutes of peace from the kids; It gave him eight), and pulled the dip out of the oven when it beeped it was done.

He spent ten minutes tending to Kelly's tears and the burn when he had accidentally brushed his finger along the hot dish, another eight fiddling with the DVD player and Diana's movie and by then the pizzas were ready to eat.

Another twenty minutes was spent refereeing the consumption of the food between his two children and then settling a fight between Kelly and Diana which resulted in the end of both Nick's patience and the possibility of peach cobbler for Kelly.

Ten more minutes were spent ignoring the fit Kelly threw as a result and Diana either must have sensed Nick's aggravation climbing or had grown tired of Kelly's wailing, since she offered to share her peach cobbler with him.

They were sitting on the couch together, coexisting peaceably as they shared in a rather large helping of the dessert and Nick rolled his eyes, heaved a loud sigh, and enjoyed the reprieve.

"And you want another one?" Hank said, shaking his head as they took a break from cards and were partaking in the cobbler as well, and Bud looked up.

"They're not always like that," Nick defended, though privately he reflected most of their waking hours spent together were. Kelly was an energetic and precocious little hellion, and Diana was a clever and manipulative brat, and they both seemed to delight in antagonizing one another.

She was also a very sweet, loveable, thoughtful little girl, who desired acceptance and not to be so completely different from other kids, and was already showing signs of her mother's snappy wit. She always waited and watched for Nick to come home from work so she could be the first one to greet him with a hug and a kiss. Kelly had a smile that was infectious, like his mother's, and enjoyed life so simply and immensely that you couldn't help but get caught up in his enthusiasm. Most days, after police work and Grimm work, it was just what he needed. He was always right beside his sister to greet Nick each day and Nick loved them both with a depth of feeling he didn't think Hank could ever truly understand without having children of his own.

"Kids are great," Bud said. "Mine, I wouldn't trade 'em for the world. Sure you have days where you'd like to sell them on Ebay, but, you know, those days are rare. Well, at least you have more good days than bad ones. That's good, Nick. You and Adalind having a baby. And this time you'll be there right from the beginning. Not that you weren't I guess before, I mean, how else would she have become pregnant right, but I mean—"

"I know what you mean, Bud," Nick interrupted, hoping to spare himself and Bud commentary on Kelly's conception.

"Right, right," Bud said. "Anyway, the whole pregnancy thing…it's a trip," he said.

Something Nick desperately wanted to experience. Monroe had gotten to go through it all with Rosalee, but Nick had only the last few weeks of Adalind's pregnancy with Kelly and he had been too freaked out and too worried to enjoy it, not to mention the fact he and Adalind hadn't exactly been friendly when he found out he was going to be a father, literally only because Adalind had finally been forced to tell him due to circumstances. Had things been different, it was likely he may never have known about his son until years, or even decades later, if at all.

He was acutely aware his window of opportunity to experience the pregnancy from start to finish was rapidly closing. Adalind had wound up unexpectedly pregnant again a year ago, but she had lost the baby while he had been comatose in the hospital, and before he had even known about it, and then he had had to wait until he was fully and one hundred percent recovered from the injuries the stachelig qualle had inflicted before she would even listen about trying for another one, and another few months before he would convince her it was time to start trying in earnest.

They were two months into the experiment and both months had resulted in disappointment on the baby front. Nick was trying not to be antsy, but he was feeling impatient, and he didn't think that would help anything. He didn't want Adalind to feel pressured. After months of reluctance to get behind the baby making thing, largely due to health concerns over him, she was starting to get into it, at least. He was trying to just enjoy the fact it meant they had more reasons to have a lot of sex (honestly, though, not that they needed them. They had a pretty healthy and satisfying sex life, even with two kids)—and not focus on the fact that he felt like they were on some sort of time table to get pregnant as soon as possible.

Adalind thought he was being ridiculous, that they would get pregnant again when it was the right time, and that might be tomorrow or it might be a year from tomorrow. He supposed she was right.

They loved each other, that's all he really needed to focus on. That's all he should be focusing on. A baby would result whenever it was ready. Really, his life was barely controlled chaos on a good day, why was he in such a rush to bring a baby into it? He was still figuring out how to handle the specialness that was Diana, and Kelly, and keep them safe. Adding more to the equation wasn't going to help.

"Nick? You with us?" Monroe asked him.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, what were you saying?"

"I was saying it's your turn."

"Oh, right." Nick glanced blankly at his cards and then tossed a few chips in the pile.

He lost his shirt twenty minutes later, as Wu cleaned house, and the guys all glared at him.

"What?" Wu asked, noticing the looks.

"Is it time for the game?" Hank asked them, throwing his cards down in disgust.

"I think so," Monroe said, looking at his watch. "Pregame stuff's on." Nick looked over at the couch where his children were still lying on it together quietly, engrossed in the movie playing on the TV.

He loathed to disturb them.

Mostly because when he told them they needed to move, to turn off the movie, even though they could continue watching it upstairs, they would be anything but quiet or still.

"Are you guys ready to go upstairs?" he asked them. Diana craned her blonde head to look at him, while Kelly shook his head belligerently.

"I don't wanna go to bed," he whined.

"You don't have to go to bed yet. You guys can watch the movie upstairs in mommy and daddy's room for a little while. We're going to watch the game," Nick said.

That had been the plan anyway. An hour later and both kids were down in the great room with him and the guys, refusing to stay upstairs despite Nick having taken, in Kelly's case, him up there twice already. He had given up on it after the third time Kelly came down, following his sister, who skipped up to Nick and climbed on the arm of the chair, informing him the movie was over. Nick had missed most of the first quarter already and was both counting down and dreading the minutes until their bedtime, when he would have to wrangle them into bed and he might finally be able to follow the game.

Kelly was currently playing noisily on the floor in front of the TV, while Diana lounged against Nick's shoulder, still balanced on the arm of the chair, occasionally asking him questions about the game and the players. Bud took the interruptions in stride, perhaps used to it with three children of his own, and even helped to answer some of her questions, but Nick thought he detected some annoyance from Hank. Wu didn't appear to notice it and Monroe was busy tending to his daughter who had woken up and was crying loudly in the den.

The level of crying increased in both intensity and volume as Monroe came into the room carrying her.

"You need some help?" Nick said, hoping the answer was no, or if not, something he was confident he could help with, like pointing out the trash can to dispose of a diaper in.

"I think she's just hungry," Monroe said, "I'm going to warm a bottle in the microwave. You want to hold her a bit?"

"Sure," Nick said suppressing a frown and taking her carefully from Monroe's arms. Diana peered curiously over Nick's shoulder at the wailing baby. The wailing increased, and Nick pulled her close to his body and rocked her a bit, remembering when he and Adalind had first moved into the loft together Kelly crying incessantly. How frazzled and lost they were, trying to figure out the cause, get him to calm down.

Nick fumbled for his phone in his pocket, hoping maybe the lights on it would fascinate Monroe's daughter like they had his son.

They didn't.

Diana wrinkled her nose and slid away from him, towards Kelly.

Nick stood up, thinking maybe some walking around might help, and paced around the room, the baby still screaming before Hank said, rather pointedly.

"Maybe she wants to be with her dad."

Nick took the hint and sauntered into the kitchen where Monroe was testing the milk he had prepared to make sure it wasn't too hot.

"Whoa, not calming down, huh?" Nick shook his head, and passed Monroe's daughter back to him.

"Not impressed with the help, I don't think." Nick grabbed another beer out of the fridge and one for Hank and left Monroe in the kitchen to feed his daughter. "Hey grab me one," Monroe said, and Nick nodded and fumbled to wrap his fingers around three necks, and then went back into the great room.

"Thanks," Hank said, taking the bottle from him. Nick set Monroe's down on one of the end tables and turned to his daughter and son, conveniently disappeared.

"Did the kids go to bed?" he asked, knowing that was too much to hope. Hank shrugged indifferently.

"They went to the kitchen I think," Wu said and Nick frowned. He had just been there. He turned and retraced his steps passing Monroe still carrying a crying baby.

"She still hungry?"

"She didn't want it," Monroe said.

"Did you see Kelly and Dee in the kitchen?" Monroe shook his head. Nick's frown deepened and he continued across the house, where he encountered Diana.

"Hi daddy," she said, and his eyes narrowed. Something about the way she was looking at him...

"Where's your brother?" he asked her.

She shrugged. "Can I have a popsicle?" she asked him.

"No," Nick said and thought he heard the rattle of porcelain from the vicinity of the counter. "Is he messing with something in the kitchen?" Nick asked her and she shrugged again and Nick detected she was stymieing him.

"Kelly? Kelly!" he said when he found his son, balanced precariously on a barstool and the counter, helping himself to more peach cobbler. Kelly released his hold on the counter and the barstool rocked back dangerously, wobbling around before remaining upright.

"Get down!" Nick snapped and Kelly gave him a wounded look before climbing down. His mouth and hands were sticky with cobbler and crust crumbs as he tried to convince Nick he'd been framed. Nick thought about doing the whole rigmarole of getting him to confess, that lying was bad, and did he want to lie to his father, but by this point Nick was ready to call it a day on the parental lessons.

"It's time for bed," he told them as he grabbed his son and set Kelly on the counter so he could wash off his hands and face.

Kelly was still pleading his case, Diana watching them wordlessly, when Monroe drifted back in, the baby now red-faced and screaming.

"Did you try changing her?" he asked, looking over his shoulder as he cleaned Kelly up.

"Yes," Monroe ground out.

"Maybe you should try feeding her again?"

Monroe grabbed the bottle off the counter and Kelly wriggled his way to the edge before Diana offered her assistance and helped him down.

"You guys head upstairs and I'll be up to tuck you in," Nick told them.

"Okay," Diana agreed easily, making Nick doubt her willingness to comply. The fact Kelly didn't argue either made him further suspect they had their own ideas.

"I mean it," he said.

"Okay," Diana replied and Monroe interrupted before Nick could pursue it further.

"Maybe I should call Rosalee," he said and Nick shrugged and nodded. "Or I could text her?"

"Sure," Nick agreed. Monroe handed Nick the little girl again while he fished out his phone.

"You try changing her again?" Nick asked and Monroe gave him a look. "Maybe she soiled her diaper again," he defended thinking of a couple of instances where Kelly had done the same. He made shushing sounds, which she seemed to take as an insult as she screamed louder.

"I don't think I'm helping," Nick said.

"I can see that," Monroe replied.

"You guys got any more beer?" Wu said, popping into the kitchen.

"Downstairs, in the garage," Nick replied, and Wu looked at the unhappy child in his arms.

"She okay?"

"We...hope so," Nick said, looking at Monroe.

"Waiting for Rosalee to reply."

"Maybe she turned her phone off," Wu said. "You said they were going to a show?"

Monroe looked at Wu, slightly worried he might not have an answer forthcoming soon, then at Nick.

"Maybe she just wants to be held," he suggested, and Wu continued on his beer run and Nick handed Monroe his daughter back.

He heard the guys shouting and cheering in the other room a minute later and went to see what the commotion was about.

"What happened?" Nick asked them and then rolled his eyes when he spotted Diana and Kelly sitting in the chair he had vacated. "You guys, didn't I tell you to go to bed?"

"We're being good," Diana said, and Kelly carefully avoided his eyes.

"Go to bed!"

"What happened?" Monroe said, bringing the noisemaker along with him.

"Just intercepted and scored a touchdown!"

"All right," Monroe said.

"What's her problem?" Hank asked, wincing at the sound.

"If we knew that do you think she'd be crying?" Monroe said snappishly.

"Have you tried rocking her?" Nick asked. "There's a rocker upstairs in Kelly's room," he offered, and Monroe shrugged. "Might be worth a try," and Monroe agreed and went upstairs. "You guys," he said, eyeing his children, "can follow him. Let's go," he said.

"It will be too noisy to sleep with the baby crying," Diana said.

"No it won't," Nick argued.

"The rocker chair is in Kelly's room."

Oh. Right. Good point. That reminded him they really needed to move the glider-rocker to the play room, like he and Adalind had discussed at one point.

"You can still get ready for bed. Get in your pajamas, brush your teeth," he countered because it was important he didn't look like he was conceding their point. "The baby should fall asleep in a few minutes."

Diana sighed loudly and Nick eyed her and his son warningly and they grudgingly slid out of the chair and made their way upstairs.

When he went up after them a few minutes later, it was twenty minutes after Adalind's imposed bedtime. Monroe's daughter had quieted some, but she was still fussing, and Kelly had somehow put his pajamas on inside out.

Nick debated on leaving them that way, he was only wearing them to bed after all, but Adalind would say something when she saw her son the next morning, and so he helped Kelly take them off and put them on right side out. Diana was dressed correctly and she was brushing her teeth as he had instructed, eyeing her brother as though he was a head case.

"I don't think it's working," Monroe said, coming to the bathroom doorway where Nick was trying to clean toothpaste out of Diana's hair. He wasn't sure on the details of how, exactly, the toothpaste came to be in Diana's hair in the two minutes where Nick had left them alone, but he gathered by Diana's hostile looks and Kelly's sticky hands that his son had something to do with it.

"Maybe you just need to rock her for a little bit longer. Did you hear back from Rosalee?"

"Ow!" Diana groused when Nick snagged her hair.

"Sorry."

"I don't know. I left my phone downstairs," Monroe said. He went in search of it, and Nick heard the baby's cries intensify with each step he descended and could imagine the looks from the guys.

"You know what, we'll have to wash your hair tomorrow," Nick said to Diana and she glared murderously at her brother. Nick had gotten most of it out with some water, but it was still stiff and a bit sticky on the ends. Kelly grinned as he continued to brush the four teeth he'd been scrubbing for the last five minutes. He was standing on a stepstool so he could reach the sink and as he bent over it to spit out the toothpaste he met a face-full of water from the faucet, courtesy of one little girl Hexenbiest.

"Diana!" Nick groused, shaking water off his arms where he had gotten wet also. Kelly's face and pajama top were soaked, and his son looked pissed and maybe a little envious at her method of retaliation. He hoped his son never demonstrated any powers before he and Adalind could figure out what to do about his sister's.

"All right you guys, enough!" Nick barked. "Diana, clean up this mess, and Kelly, don't forget the sides and the back of your teeth," Nick said pointedly, and Kelly looked at him and mumbled something unintelligible around the toothbrush. He complied though, taking a swipe on each side before announcing he was done.

"I don't think so," Nick said. "Ten on each side. Ten on the back. Diana can count them," and she gave Nick a look that said why would she help the brat who had just put toothpaste in her hair.

Nick raised his eyebrow challengingly.

So she did. In French. Then in Russian, and finally in German and Kelly scowled at her for the first two languages, realizing he had no idea what the words she was saying meant. Nick wasn't sure but it appeared she counted higher than ten, too, more payback for her brother. Nick noted with surprise that Kelly seemed to be able to count in German, though, and Nick wondered if that was Monroe's influence, Adalind's, even Diana's, or maybe, less likely, his preschool. Kelly would have a much easier time getting through the Grimm books than Nick had, he reflected, if he became fluent in another language, especially German. He even counted the final few numbers out loud with Diana and then looked at Nick expectantly.

"Fine, you're done," he agreed. "Rinse and get into bed."

In twenty-five minutes he had tucked in Diana twice, watched Kelly slurp down a glass of water as he justified his claim that he needed one because he was thirsty, tucked him in again, verified for his son that there was not a monster lurking beyond the closet door and when Diana asked for a glass of water he had angrily declared enough with the stall tactics and it was time to go to sleep.

He headed down the stairs only to be greeted with an agitated Monroe, and an even more agitated baby, who was back to wailing loudly. Hank looked like he would prefer something a lot stronger than a beer and Nick noticed with surprise it was already well into the third quarter.

"Did I miss half-time?" he asked inanely, though obviously he had.

"You've missed most of the whole game," Hank replied, looking at Nick, and then Monroe. His tone implied _So have I._

"Rosalee text back?" he asked Monroe.

"No, not yet."

"Did you check her diaper again?"

"Yes!"

"Maybe try singing to her?" Bud suggested to Monroe. "That always used to help my kids."

"Don't we want her to _stop_ crying?" Wu asked.

"How about feeding her?" Hank asked. "Hard to scream if your mouth is occupied."

"I tried feeding her. Do you all have any actual helpful suggestions?" Monroe bit out.

"Let's not turn on each other, that's just what she wants," Wu replied.

"You've done this," Monroe said, looking at Nick, who stared back in confusion, "dealt with a crying baby before."

"Many times," Nick agreed.

"What did you do?"

"You mean if Adalind wasn't here? Called Rosalee," Nick said, and Monroe rolled his eyes. "What, I may have two children but I've only ever been through this once so far. I tried the thing with the phone. That worked with Kelly but I don't think she liked it. And sometimes, Kelly just wanted his mother."

"Great," Monroe said.

"Maybe we can try something different? A toy?"

"Let me try calling Rosalee again," Monroe said, and handed Nick the screaming infant. Nick grimaced and then spotted Diana creeping down the stairs.

"Diana!" he said, gladly handing the baby over to Bud. "What are you doing up?"

"Kelly wet the bed."

Nick closed his eyes and sighed and followed her back up the stairs to find his son was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, where Diana must have directed him to wait, crying silently. He saw Nick and began sniffling and sniveling in earnest.

Nick spent the next half hour calming his son down, changing his clothes, changing his bedding, and getting both children situated back in bed. He looked at his boy, thick brown hair, dark like Nick's, askew, as he tucked Kelly back into bed. George, Kelly's much abused and much loved stuffed giraffe he'd had from infancy was held tightly in Kelly's hand.

"Old George has seen better days," Nick remarked. George took a beheading courtesy of Diana early in their acquaintance hard, and the subsequent surgery to reattach his neck to his body hadn't ever left him the same. "You did good today, you've almost got it down," Nick said trying to soothe him. "We'll just work on those nights. Meanwhile, The Flash, will help out tonight," Nick said, referring to the superhero diaper/underwear combo Kelly was currently outfitted in.

"Will you stay and make sure the monster doesn't get me?" Kelly pleaded.

"Kelly, there's no monster, that was just Diana telling you stories and trying to scare you." _Thank you for that,_ Nick thought sourly. "I would never let anything get you," Nick said.

"Daddy," Kelly said when Nick shifted as though to leave. "Monsters are scary."

"Sometimes, yeah," Nick said settling back down beside Kelly. "Someday the day will come where maybe one day they'll be more terrified of you than you them," Nick said quietly, wondering what his son's destiny was.

Grimm? Hexenbiest (Zauberbiest)? A bane of existence as some hybrid of the two. Kelly's life, like Diana's, was destined to be difficult, it was just that Nick wasn't sure exactly how it would manifest itself. As a Grimm, Kelly, and his parents by extension, had likely decades to prepare. As a Zauberbiest, perhaps only until puberty. As a Hexengrimm? Who knew, but everything he had read on hybrids indicated that he had likely inherited the strongest traits from each parent, and that he would be very powerful. As much as his son was like him, there was no denying he was very, very different.

"You don't have to worry about it though now," Nick said quietly, and laid there until his son fell asleep, thinking of the future and what their family would look like in five, ten, and twenty years' time.

"Where'd everybody go?" Nick asked Monroe in bewilderment when he rejoined him in the family room.

"Home. Game's over."

Nick heard a noise and looked over to doorway by the garage, where he spotted Wu dumping some trash in the garbage.

"Hey, you guys don't have to go yet."

"Nah, it's good. Thanks for having us."

"Okay, well, see you at work Monday," Nick said, feeling a little discombobulated.

"Yup. Bye Monroe!" Wu said and left.

Nick looked over at Monroe, who had his head tilted back to lean against the top edge of the couch, his daughter chewing on some plastic keys, held in his arms in his lap.

"Hey, she stopped crying," Nick observed. "You figure it out?"

"Yeah, about ten minutes after she finally cleared out the room. Rosalee called back. Said she thought she was teething and gave me a couple of suggestions. The second one worked."

Teething. Nick hadn't thought of that.

"Guess they didn't want to hang around any longer after tonight," Nick said sighing, referring to their friends.

"Nope," Monroe agreed, "can you blame them?" and Nick sighed again and grabbed his warm beer off the table. He took a swig and grimaced, and collapsed on the couch beside Monroe and leaned his head back, too.

"Nope, I suppose not," he said. "God, what a night," Nick muttered. "Who won the game?"

"I have no idea," Monroe said and Nick nodded. "I watched maybe ten minutes more of it than you did." Nick nodded and took another sip of his beer.

"We used to be cool, Nick. Now look at us," Monroe lamented after a moment of silence.

"Speak for yourself," Nick said. "I'm still cool."

Monroe snorted rudely, and Nick opened one eye. "You're wearing mismatched socks and you smell like urine." Nick opened his eyes and looked at the footwear in question.

"They're the same sock," he defended, and "it's just one's more color faded than the other." He sniffed at his shirt. It did smell a bit…gamey. Nick rolled his eyes skyward and closed them again. He'd have to take a shower before bed. "Kelly wet the bed."

"Still having problems potty training?"

"He's doing better. I mean we went all day today with no problems."

"That's good."

"Yeah," Nick breathed. "And you know what, I'm a Grimm," he added, another thought coming to him. "I am by definition, the very essence of cool."

"Not Wesen definition," Monroe argued.

"And, let's not forget I'm a cop," Nick said, undeterred. Monroe snorted again while his daughter stared at Nick as she chewed on her keys with wide, almond-shaped, chocolate eyes, listening.

"That doesn't make you cool. Actually, by society's rules it makes you kind of a dick."

"I carry a gun. And a crossbow, and an axe, and I have a rifle that will bring down an ogre—"

"—Fine, I'll give you the ogre gun—"

"—and I can do more than a little damage mano y mano."

"So can I."

"I married a beautiful woman," Nick pointed out.

"As did I."

"Mine drives a Porsche," Nick continued, and Monroe smirked. Nick took another sip of his beer as he tried to think of more points in favor of his argument. Monroe took a sip of his drink, too, patiently waiting.

"I was never cool," Nick said after a moment.

"Yeah, neither was I," Monroe said with a sigh. "You think the others will ever invite us to another social gathering ever again?"

"Only if we promise to leave our kids at home," Nick said.

"After an hour and a half of straight crying, probably going to have to promise that we will never even mention we have kids," Monroe said.

"Might have to promise we won't have anymore."

"Still want another one?"

"Like you don't even know," Nick expelled with a breath.

"Seriously?" Monroe said, raising his head up to look at him. Nick nodded, and opened his eyes when he felt Monroe still staring at him.

"I know, it's crazy. Especially after tonight. My kids, your kid; if there was an argument on holding off on more children, we saw a large portion of it tonight, but yeah, I still want another baby."

"Rosalee said that Adalind said you're kind of anxious about it." Nick looked at him. "What, you've seen them together, they don't exactly edit their discussions when they're around other people. They don't even consider me other people. I hear all sorts of interesting stuff."

"I don't know what it is, if it's what happened," Nick said, referring to being stabbed by the stachelig qualle, the subsequent coma and heart stopping multiple times, and Adalind miscarrying during that time. "Or because Adalind wanted to wait after she lost the baby for me to get better, and if that makes me feel like maybe it's another thing like with Juliette." At Monroe's confused look he elaborated. "You know where I asked her to marry me and she put me off, but said she wanted to, and then it just was never the right time again until it just never happened. I don't know."

"Adalind is _not_ Juliette."

"Believe me, I know. And the way things turned out, I mean it's better with Adalind then I think it ever would have even come close to being with Juliette, so I mean, it worked out. And I keep telling myself it will all work out, but… I don't know why I think if it doesn't happen soon it won't ever happen, but I do."

"Because your life is one chaotic freak show after another."

"See, and shouldn't that be another argument on waiting? I know what my life is like sometimes, how terrified I was for Kelly and his safety; how I still am. Adalind pregnant… I mean, again, it's a huge risk. She's vulnerable, even more so without her powers if someone tried to get at her to get me … It's like when she was pregnant with Kelly. I mean, I didn't even like her then and I was still terrified someone would hurt my son."

"That someone was mostly Juliette, and I don't think Eve would do anything to Adalind if she got pregnant again."

"No, probably not."

"She seems to have accepted that you're together," Monroe insisted.

"Yeah, I suppose even I can see that, but that's not to say someone else won't want Adalind dead, or try to use her. I mean there's dozens of arguments that say wait, or hold off, or maybe it's not such a good idea, and the only one I'm willing to listen to is the one that says have a baby."

"Just because Adalind's not a Hexenbiest anymore doesn't mean she's defenseless either."

"I know."

"You ever think about if Adalind had stayed a Hexenbiest?" Monroe asked him. "If the suppressant had worn off and she was gifted with her powers again."

"Sometimes," Nick admitted. "I mean, I used to wonder if I would be okay with it. I look at us now and think if she woke up with her powers again tomorrow…yeah, I mean, I think I would be. I love her too much, now. We've got a life together. Maybe we wouldn't have if she hadn't done what she did, but I don't know. I think maybe we still would. She's nothing like how she used to be, and I used to think maybe she's right, it's because the Hexenbiest was no longer influencing her, but I really think it's because Adalind's changed and I don't think the Hexenbiest would be as much of a factor as she believed it would be. I'm not sure how much, knowing her better now, that the Hexenbiest was a factor in the things she did anyway. We've both changed. There's more at stake now. Having kids, there's a pressure on getting it right, getting your shit together and really focusing on what's important."

"You think she regrets it?"

"Overall? No, I don't think she does. I think she still feels it was the right decision because she wanted a family and stability and she thought that's what she had to do to keep it, but yeah, sometimes I think she wishes she still had her powers, especially when she's scared or worried she can't protect the kids."

"You guys still thinking about doing something with Diana's?"

"Yeah."

Monroe looked at him.

"Diana's unhappy. Adalind and I don't like seeing her miserable, we're just not sure what the right answer is. A temporary solution like a suppressant? It lasts for a year maybe? Then what? We just keep suppressing it? What if we can't? We run out or it just stops working? Do we do something more permanent? How painful is that going to be? is it right to do that? Does she stay as she is and we do our best to help her grasp control of it? We're trying to do that now. And is it worse to do nothing?"

"You mean the royals?"

"I mean the royals, Renard, and all the people who are interested in her for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it's better to just strip her of her powers and have a normal little girl that hopefully no one will care about except for the people who love her, instead of an incredibly powerful Hexenbiest who's too young to really understand that people, such as her own father, want to use her for their own ends. She just wants to be like other kids, just normal. Have friends she can play with and grow up with. We have to be careful who we bring her around now, we can't explain why she's aging so fast. She's not able to visit me at the station anymore since some of the guys have noticed she seems older than she should be. So, yeah, we're still thinking about it. Probably going to come to a decision about it soon, and you think it would be easier than what it is to make that decision but it's not."

"Hm," Monroe said.

"What about you? You want more kids?"

"Honestly? Yeah, I wouldn't mind a couple of more. Don't know after everything if that's going to happen though."

"Yeah," Nick said quietly, feeling a pang of regret for going on about his own issues. It wasn't like he was childless after all, or that he had had fertility issues. Monroe and Rosalee had gone through more heartache and stress to have a child than he had. Hell, he had been working one day and found out he was going to be a father through no special efforts of his own (although that afternoon he had unwittingly slept with Adalind had been pretty damn nice, perhaps even worthy of the baby-making souvenir that had resulted). Monroe had had to live with hope that was dashed away numerous times before the stars finally aligned to give him a baby and that wasn't without a lot of drama in the end either.

"We're pathetic," Monroe said. "A Grimm and a Blutbad carrying on about whether or not we're going to have something little and cute to cuddle. If people could see us," Monroe said, shaking his head, and Nick smiled.

"We've always defied expectations," Nick said.

"I like to think so," Monroe agreed.

A couple of hours later he was finishing up his cleaning of the family room, Adalind watching as he took the trash bag out into the garage. Monroe and Rosalee had packed their daughter up and headed home, same as Trubel and Eve. Adalind looked tired, but not the tipsy tired that resulted when she had indulged in too much wine and drink, making him think she hadn't indulged in her usual libations.

"So how'd it go with the guys?" she asked him. Nick shrugged.

"I have officially fallen into the un-fun, married dad category, I think. Monroe, too."

"What is that?"

"That's where you spend the entire time haranguing your kids while everybody else hates you a little since you're impeding their enjoyment of the game."

"Oh," she said. "I take it the kids acted up all night?"

"A little," Nick said dryly.

"Well, I think you're still fun," she said supportively. "In fact, I was hoping to have a little fun with you tonight when I got home," she added, grinning suggestively as she looped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. There was a hint of wine on her lips but nothing like the barrel he would have assumed she consumed during her night out.

"What?" she said, pulling away a little.

"You didn't drink?"

"I had two glasses of wine," she said. "We're trying to get pregnant. Alcohol's not always helpful with that. Probably shouldn't have even had that much."

"I don't know. Alcohol always seemed to help all the kids I went to high school and college with," Nick said. "Helped a little the last time," Nick said, daring to point out she'd been a little tipsy after a party and Nick had taken advantage of the fact.

"You really think I got pregnant the last time from the partner's annual soiree?"

"You're not suggesting the other time?" Nick said.

She smiled. "I find it endearing that you prefer our baby to have resulted from a night of drunken sex rather than the night I was completely sober but exhausted and let you do whatever just so I wouldn't have to listen to you whine anymore about it."

"I wasn't whining, and you weren't drunk," Nick said. "That drunk, anyway. You knew what you were doing. You were determined to seduce me," he defended. "I just finally gave in."

"Right. It's the woman's fault."

"No, but you knew what was going on."

"Kind of hard to miss with equipment like that being used," she said cheekily. She palmed a handful for demonstration.

"And you weren't _that_ tired," he added, closing his eyes and enjoying her ministrations. "It wasn't like I was doing everything."

"Mm," she said smiling, letting up and now his pants felt uncomfortably tight. "Anyway, I thought I would make sure I was doing my part tonight to help the cause."

"I guess that means we should go upstairs so I can do mine."

"Probably, unless you want to do it here in the kitchen."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Nick replied.

"Hm, that was fun," Adalind said smiling.

"Yes, it was, but it was also before we had two children who were mobile and curious and refused to stay in their beds. They have you and I for parents: their therapy bill's probably going to be outrageous enough as it is. We don't need to add any specific horrifying events for them to have to work through. Upstairs we have a nice, comfortable bed and a door that locks."

"Make sure you lock it this time," she said referring to a time when they almost had a horrifying event, but fortunately it was Kelly who had interrupted them, and combined with the fact their son was a little slower on the uptake as to what his parents had been getting ready to do than Diana would have been, and the fact he'd shown up before things had gotten too carried away, they'd managed to avoid scarring one of their children for life.

"Believe me, it will be the first thing I do."


End file.
